Seattle's political horticulture

A well known anecdote about Dorothy Parker (of the Algonquin Roundtable) was that, challenged to construct a sentence with the word 'horticulture' in it, she came up with, 'You can lead a...but, you can't make her think.'

Newly elected mayor Ed Murray announces that he's hep;

Seattle's incoming mayor announced Thursday that he would give a big task force of business, labor, government and academics four months to come up with a plan to raise the city's minimum wage.

Mayor-elect Ed Murray said his goal is to raise Seattle's minimum wage to $15 an hour, but he'll let the task force work out the details.

Seattle has become a flash point in a national debate over raising the minimum wage, even though Washington state already has the highest statewide minimum wage in the nation at $9.19 an hour.

Not to be out-pandered;

City Council Member Nick Licata expressed confidence the city will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.

"We're a strong caring city. Generally we do what needs to be done," Licata said. "We got Elvis Presley to come here...I think we can get to a $15 minimum wage."

He and others also compared the campaign to Washington's adoption of gay marriage, an effort for which Murray was a leader.

"A lot of things are possible," Sewant said. "For all the naysayers who think this can't be done in Seattle — marriage equality is a good example."

A good bad example of believing that wishful thinking will make it so. Or, if you call jobs from the vasty deep...will they come when you call them?

Unfortunately for low skilled Seattleites, it's likely be more than a ten year out to lunch.